In a working-class area of Sweden, sisters Laura (16), Mira (12) and Steffi (7), get by on their own, left to their own devices by an absent mother. With summer on the way and no parents around, life is wild and carefree, vivacious and anarchic. But when social services call a meeting, Laura has to find someone to impersonate their mom, or the girls will be taken into foster care and separated. Laura keeps the threat a secret, so as not to worry her younger sisters. But as the moment of truth draws closer, new tensions arise, forcing the three sisters to negotiate the fine line between the euphoria of total freedom and the harsh realities of growing up.

Cast & Crew
Producer: Nima Yousefi
Director: Mika Gustafson
Script: Mika Gustafson, Alexander Öhrstrand
Director of Photography: Sine Vadstrup Brooker
Production Design: Catharina Nyqvist Ehrnrooth
Music: Giorgio Giampà
Sound: Gustaf Berger
Editor: Anders Skov
Cast: Bianca Delbravo, Dilvin Asaad, Safira Mossberg, Ida Engvoll, Mitja Siren, Marta Oldenburg
Production: Hobab

Awards
Best Director – Horizons Awards, Best Screenwriting – Authors under 40 Awards, Venice IFF, 2023; Sutherland Award – First Feature Competition, London FF, 2023;  Best Film, Best Production Design, Guldbagge Awards, Sweden, 2024

Mika Gustafson
Mika Gustafson was born in Linköping, Sweden, in 1988. In 2016, she graduated from the Valand Film Academy. The same year she received the Nordic Talents Prize in Copenhagen. Her graduation film Mephobia, won Iconoclastic Prize at the Torino FF and Best Actor at Premiere Plans. Her documentary Silvana was awarded at the National Film Awards for Best Documentary in 2017. She was granted her own exhibition at Centre d’Art Contemporain de Genève. She was part of the Dragon Award Jury at Gothenburg IFF (2019) and was selected to Berlinale Script Station in 2020 with her fellow scriptwriter Alexander Öhrstrand. Paradise is Burning is her first fiction feature.

Filmography
Secretly Filmed My Boyfriend After We Had a Fight (short, 2013), 22nd May (short, 2014), Mephobia (short, 2017), Mephobia Kids (short, 2017), Silvana - Väck mig när ni vaknat (doc, 2017), Paradise Is Burning (2023) ․